Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Rider Break! Episode 19: Rider War Part 2

Can the classic and modern (and guys that are like 15 years old but we'll still pretend they're sorta modern) Riders put aside their vaguely-defined differences in time to save the world? Will Shu reunite with his mother? Will Super Sentai actually show up? Who will survive, and what will be left of them? It's an overlong, incoherent nonsensical monstrosity... but enough about this episode of Rider Break!

Listen in as Heisei Riders vs. Shōwa Riders: Kamen Rider Taisen feat. Super Sentai concludes in the only way it possibly could (or at least one of two ways)...

• The movie "review" concludes with more Riders fightin', an epic final battle, a REALLY epic cross-generational transformation, and an unbelievable ending that is bound to be super unpopular. And of course, I love it.

• I'll fully admit, I blanked on a few things during the big explanation scene on the bridge, so I'm not kidding when I say it's very likely better than I make it sound. It still doesn't come across as completely in-character to me personally, but I think it's better than the crazy-go-nuts motivations for heroes in previous films. Ultimately it'll come down to a matter of opinion. Some might find it all a load of hogwash; others may be more okay with it than me. Still others will wonder who the hell still says things like "a load of hogwash".

• There are probably tons of mistakes and out-of-order scenes near the end. One I can already recall offhand is that Fourze was just in regular Base States with the Rocket Arm... I think. Guess we'll find out in a few more days!

• For even more laughs though, continue that drinking game of how many times:

- A sentence ends on "...and stuff like that"
- "You know" is used as a bridge between two thoughts
- I stop talking about the actual movie plot to talk about something tangentially related, like the history of X-Rider's transformation or my own theory about the rest of the Faiz cast.
-A character's reaction is described as being "What the he-" or some variations thereof.
-I put off a thought by saying "but I'll get to that..."

I am surprised of the negative reactions towards the heisei ending since i really liked and it seems to me that it fits better with the narrative of the movie (which is basically the Heisei Rider proving that they are worthy of the Kamen Rider name and the Showa Riders stop being mean to them).

I know its silly, but that is exactly what makes it work: Tokusatsu is an inherently silly genre, but its morals and messages are still worth sharing. Yes, Kouta taking the blunt of Ichigou´s attack is silly, but you can´t deny that protecting all life is a positive message that it is most definitely Kamen Rider (incidentally, it is also very Precure).

All in all i enjoyed the movie, but i don´t think its a good movie; Kamen Rider Taisen is in fact two good movies and one ok movie. Really, the Faiz/x portion, the Shuu/Decade portion and the whole crossover/badan story line are very diferent in tone and make for good independent stories, but the combination still feels a bit odd (as you said, it is as if they had inserted a Faiz/Decade episode into the movie).

I look forward to you Kikaider Reboot review since i love Kikaider and am apparently a masochist.

I wrote up a big long thing about both endings I'll get around to finishing some day (it was pretty stream-of-consciousness) but I think I enjoy them about the same, but in a way I wish they would have just done one ending that combined the message of both. It's weird how each ending almost sort of works as well (if not better) for the "losing" side, which is why I didn't think the theatrical cut had the Heisei ending at first. They aren't the decisive and clear-cut "we're right, they're wrong" endings as I think a lot of people wanted, but that's why I do like them- at the end of the day these are a bunch of heroes here, and I'd rather everybody gets to go home happy than needing some silly point made that will be forgotten/ignored by next year anyway. Kamen Rider doesn't exist without the Showa Riders, but it doesn't continue without the Heisei Riders. You need both; you can't have one without the other, which I feel was the real message the movie was going for (or got there unintentionally!)

If I have to choose, I actually do like the Heisei ending slightly more, but not for the words or the point it's trying to make. I just like Rider 1 helping Gaim up after he calls him Kamen Rider Gaim- THAT to me is Rider 1 summed up perfectly.

Kikaider Reboot is coming soon, once I can get through the 3-hour mess I recorded for it.